I find or I am sent so many useful links to websites with great resources and ideas. But I am not always in a position to use them straight away for a variety of reasons.
I used to keep a word document of useful links. It wasn't easy to search and formatting was tricky. Now I use social bookmarking. I found out about it when reading an article in a teaching magazine. At first I just tried it, adding websites that I already know about and gradually my use has increased.
The site I use is called delicious. You can create "stacks" meaning it is even easier to keep related bookmarks together and browse them. I also have apps on the iPad that make it even easier to add and search the websites I have bookmarked.
As the resources available on the Internet expand social bookmarking is a great way to keep track of the useful things I have seen. Try it.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Tuesday, 24 January 2012
Sunday, 22 January 2012
Numeracy Across the Curriculum (ASE conference session)
Can you name all the different types of graphs and charts? I will freely admit that can't do it without support.
Do all the different types of graphs and charts have the same names in maths and science? Are the geographers and other subject teachers using the same terminology? Is it only in graphs and charts that the terminology is different?
I have well and truly had my eyes opened regarding the importance on liaising with the maths department regarding the use of maths in science. Particularly as a physics teacher. The main issues are that ofsted are now looking for consistent teaching of numeracy across the curriculum and that maths and English grades are becoming more important so we need to all be teachers of those subjects within our own.
The ofsted framework says:
Outstanding: ‘Time is used well and every opportunity is taken to successfully develop crucial skills, including being able to use their literacy and numeracy skills in other subjects’
Good: ‘Teaching consistently deepens pupils’ knowledge and understanding and teaches them a range of skills including communication, reading and writing, and mathematics across the curriculum’
Satisfactory: ‘Communication skills including reading and writing, and mathematics may be taught inconsistently across the curriculum’
The session at the ASE conference focused on the barriers to teaching numeracy in science and the way that Worcestershire LA are trying to over come them. The barriers are below:
They are working on supporting schools in aligning their maths and science curricula so that skills are taught in maths lessons before being used in science. The presenter of the course did not describe how successful this was. I imagine it is very difficult to, but still a good idea.
Better than that though, the LA advisors a putting together a resource that contains presentations of how the numeracy used in science lessons is presented in maths lessons anyhow it might be different. These resources can be used in different ways, some rooms have a display on the wall that is added to as the concepts are encountered in science lessons and/or PowerPoint slides are displayed to students during the lesson when a specific skill is required. So far Worcestershire have created about 2/3 of the resources needed to cover the numeracy required in the science curriculum.
I think that this is a really nice idea. It helps to ensure consistency, helps students to make links between their lessons, and helps to boost the numeracy of the students in general.
I really enjoyed the session, thank you to Worcestershire LA for showing the work they have done.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Do all the different types of graphs and charts have the same names in maths and science? Are the geographers and other subject teachers using the same terminology? Is it only in graphs and charts that the terminology is different?
I have well and truly had my eyes opened regarding the importance on liaising with the maths department regarding the use of maths in science. Particularly as a physics teacher. The main issues are that ofsted are now looking for consistent teaching of numeracy across the curriculum and that maths and English grades are becoming more important so we need to all be teachers of those subjects within our own.
The ofsted framework says:
Outstanding: ‘Time is used well and every opportunity is taken to successfully develop crucial skills, including being able to use their literacy and numeracy skills in other subjects’
Good: ‘Teaching consistently deepens pupils’ knowledge and understanding and teaches them a range of skills including communication, reading and writing, and mathematics across the curriculum’
Satisfactory: ‘Communication skills including reading and writing, and mathematics may be taught inconsistently across the curriculum’
The session at the ASE conference focused on the barriers to teaching numeracy in science and the way that Worcestershire LA are trying to over come them. The barriers are below:
They are working on supporting schools in aligning their maths and science curricula so that skills are taught in maths lessons before being used in science. The presenter of the course did not describe how successful this was. I imagine it is very difficult to, but still a good idea.
Better than that though, the LA advisors a putting together a resource that contains presentations of how the numeracy used in science lessons is presented in maths lessons anyhow it might be different. These resources can be used in different ways, some rooms have a display on the wall that is added to as the concepts are encountered in science lessons and/or PowerPoint slides are displayed to students during the lesson when a specific skill is required. So far Worcestershire have created about 2/3 of the resources needed to cover the numeracy required in the science curriculum.
I think that this is a really nice idea. It helps to ensure consistency, helps students to make links between their lessons, and helps to boost the numeracy of the students in general.
I really enjoyed the session, thank you to Worcestershire LA for showing the work they have done.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Friday, 20 January 2012
Metacognition: "we already do that"
We have recently been asked to use metacognitive questioning with our students by our SMT. I really like this idea and feel that this focus will help me reflect more on the learning of the students than the tasks that I am giving them. The focus has occurred as a result of an increased spotlight on under-performing post-16 students. Particularly those who did well at GCSE and are hard working but can't seem to make the leap from a D/C grade up to a B/A. The reason for this inability to improve was established as the thinking of the students, they were trying to remember instead of working on strategies to help them understand. This was overcome through some coaching and grades did improve.
I have often spoken to colleagues about issues that prevent students from achieving in physics and completely agree that how they think is a big barrier. The most successful post-16 students are those that use more body language in their explanations because they are picturing what they are talking about. I know I am very expressive in class as I feel out how the electricity is flowing or how sound goes from high to low due to the Doppler effect, that is because I am thinking about the models that can help my understanding.
However, the way that metacognitive questioning was introduced at school has confused and put off many members of staff. The responses received vary from "not another bolt-on to our lessons" to "we do that already". I always feel uncomfortable with the "we do that already" response. It is very rarely true in my experience: the best teachers never use that excuse, they reflect on what they do and use every piece of evidence to improve their practice. I also worry about the "not another bolt-on" comments; are teachers in our outstanding school really doing things in lessons they think don't add value to the learning just to tick boxes?
In departmental discussion about metacognition the issue of outstanding observation scores came up time and again. I am very upset by this: my aim is for students to get a good understanding of science, not for me to score points with management because I get a high score in a lesson observation. (Although I would like to get good scores too).
What am I going to do? I am already teaching segue in year 9, so using the 5 or 7 E approach. I want to see how I can use the structure with key stage 4 and 5. The evaluation section is (from what I can tell) the opportunity for the students to reflect and for me to use metacognition questioning. Whether I will use the questions that have been suggested to us is another thing. The framework for questioning we have been given is below:
Example framework for metacognitive questioning: to raise levels of awareness
1. Describe what kind of thinking you did
• What kind of thinking did you do?
• What do you call this kind of thinking?
• Was this kind of thinking .........? (name a kind of thinking)
2. Describe how you did your thinking
• How did you do this thinking?
• What did you think about? Why?
• Did you have a plan (or strategy)?
3. Evaluate your thinking
• Was your thinking good? Why?
• Did you have a good plan (or strategy)?
• How could you improve your thinking next time?
(adapted from Schwartz & Parks, 1994)
Metacognitive reminders for students
We must remember to:
• Get ourselves in a learning mood.
• Talk about what we have to do.
• Look and listen carefully.
• Decide who is going to do what.
• Stop and think - work for several minutes without talking
• Work on the task - have a go - allow everyone to speak - listen to what they say - ask questions
• Check our work.
• Think ahead.
(adapted from Quicke & Winter 1994)
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
I have often spoken to colleagues about issues that prevent students from achieving in physics and completely agree that how they think is a big barrier. The most successful post-16 students are those that use more body language in their explanations because they are picturing what they are talking about. I know I am very expressive in class as I feel out how the electricity is flowing or how sound goes from high to low due to the Doppler effect, that is because I am thinking about the models that can help my understanding.
However, the way that metacognitive questioning was introduced at school has confused and put off many members of staff. The responses received vary from "not another bolt-on to our lessons" to "we do that already". I always feel uncomfortable with the "we do that already" response. It is very rarely true in my experience: the best teachers never use that excuse, they reflect on what they do and use every piece of evidence to improve their practice. I also worry about the "not another bolt-on" comments; are teachers in our outstanding school really doing things in lessons they think don't add value to the learning just to tick boxes?
In departmental discussion about metacognition the issue of outstanding observation scores came up time and again. I am very upset by this: my aim is for students to get a good understanding of science, not for me to score points with management because I get a high score in a lesson observation. (Although I would like to get good scores too).
What am I going to do? I am already teaching segue in year 9, so using the 5 or 7 E approach. I want to see how I can use the structure with key stage 4 and 5. The evaluation section is (from what I can tell) the opportunity for the students to reflect and for me to use metacognition questioning. Whether I will use the questions that have been suggested to us is another thing. The framework for questioning we have been given is below:
Example framework for metacognitive questioning: to raise levels of awareness
1. Describe what kind of thinking you did
• What kind of thinking did you do?
• What do you call this kind of thinking?
• Was this kind of thinking .........? (name a kind of thinking)
2. Describe how you did your thinking
• How did you do this thinking?
• What did you think about? Why?
• Did you have a plan (or strategy)?
3. Evaluate your thinking
• Was your thinking good? Why?
• Did you have a good plan (or strategy)?
• How could you improve your thinking next time?
(adapted from Schwartz & Parks, 1994)
Metacognitive reminders for students
We must remember to:
• Get ourselves in a learning mood.
• Talk about what we have to do.
• Look and listen carefully.
• Decide who is going to do what.
• Stop and think - work for several minutes without talking
• Work on the task - have a go - allow everyone to speak - listen to what they say - ask questions
• Check our work.
• Think ahead.
(adapted from Quicke & Winter 1994)
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Kingswood, Bristol
Monday, 9 January 2012
ASE conference
This year's ASE conference was the first I had attended, and I can easily say it was the best CPD I have ever experienced. This was for a variety of reasons.
The highlight of the conference for me was meeting Sir Steve Redgrave. it was definitely a great draw for me. Although I had already booked to go before I knew he would be at one of the events.
He was taking part in the Wellcome Trust Lecture promoting their sport science packs that will be delivered to schools. The lecture was a good balance between interactivity, information and fun.
The science level was high because Professor Hugh Montgomery was there to explain each experiment in detail. This meant there was plenty learn even for the accomplished biology teacher, so as a physics teacher there was a lot for me to pick up on. I wish I had recorded it.
Another major highlight of the conference was being able to meet the people who contribute to #asechat. On Saturday we had an interesting conversation about the positives and negatives of using Twitter. I still believe the positives outweigh any possible negatives and find twitter and incredibly useful in keeping up to date with resources.
The inclusion of the frontiers lectures in the ASE conference is an inspired idea. There was a variety of subjects and each lecture was given by the staff of the University of Liverpool. I went to the lecture on the Large Hadron Collider, which helped to update my knowledge. (For example I now know that neutrinos have mass but that was unsure didn't when I was at university).
It is useful to know that finding the Higgs Boson isn't the end of the work particle physicists have to do, and it helped my ability to answer questions by my students. The search for the Higgs Boson is a hot topic in my classroom. It was even better having a lecture that was at just the right pace and pitch for the audience to follow. There is a question of whether science teachers try to keep up with current developments in their subject; this lecture was such a positive way of doing that.
Apart from the entertaining aspects of the ASE Conference it was also useful to talk to the exhibiters and gain useful information. I was able to talk to OCR about the Gateway Science course. It is taking some getting used to so a few tips from the OCR team was very useful.
I attended two sessions during my time at the conference. One about numeracy in science and one about literacy. They were fantastic on many levels.
The main thing that I took away from the numeracy session is that we need a consistent approach to numeracy across the school to be "outstanding" according to Ofsted. Worcestershire LA are working on this using their advisors and several schools to build up a pack of resources that can easily be used to compare terminology and procedures in maths and science. This can only help to boost results. (Although there is no numeric data to show the impact yet, the advisors are working on this). I was intrigued by the idea of a collaborative project such as this, and feel that the federation I work in has missed a trick by not working collaboratively like this.
The literacy session was a revelation to me. There was so many techniques brought to my attention, such as speaking frames; point evidence, explanation; nominalisation (turning processes and actions into nouns); using cards to develop continuums to support the students' development of informal talk to formal writing. I have never learned so much as I did in the two hours in that session and it was worth the whole conference to me. Well done Camden and Enfield LAs.
However, the real congratulations goes to the ASE, who organised a fantastic conference. I can't wait for 2013.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
The highlight of the conference for me was meeting Sir Steve Redgrave. it was definitely a great draw for me. Although I had already booked to go before I knew he would be at one of the events.
He was taking part in the Wellcome Trust Lecture promoting their sport science packs that will be delivered to schools. The lecture was a good balance between interactivity, information and fun.
The science level was high because Professor Hugh Montgomery was there to explain each experiment in detail. This meant there was plenty learn even for the accomplished biology teacher, so as a physics teacher there was a lot for me to pick up on. I wish I had recorded it.
Another major highlight of the conference was being able to meet the people who contribute to #asechat. On Saturday we had an interesting conversation about the positives and negatives of using Twitter. I still believe the positives outweigh any possible negatives and find twitter and incredibly useful in keeping up to date with resources.
The inclusion of the frontiers lectures in the ASE conference is an inspired idea. There was a variety of subjects and each lecture was given by the staff of the University of Liverpool. I went to the lecture on the Large Hadron Collider, which helped to update my knowledge. (For example I now know that neutrinos have mass but that was unsure didn't when I was at university).
It is useful to know that finding the Higgs Boson isn't the end of the work particle physicists have to do, and it helped my ability to answer questions by my students. The search for the Higgs Boson is a hot topic in my classroom. It was even better having a lecture that was at just the right pace and pitch for the audience to follow. There is a question of whether science teachers try to keep up with current developments in their subject; this lecture was such a positive way of doing that.
Apart from the entertaining aspects of the ASE Conference it was also useful to talk to the exhibiters and gain useful information. I was able to talk to OCR about the Gateway Science course. It is taking some getting used to so a few tips from the OCR team was very useful.
I attended two sessions during my time at the conference. One about numeracy in science and one about literacy. They were fantastic on many levels.
The main thing that I took away from the numeracy session is that we need a consistent approach to numeracy across the school to be "outstanding" according to Ofsted. Worcestershire LA are working on this using their advisors and several schools to build up a pack of resources that can easily be used to compare terminology and procedures in maths and science. This can only help to boost results. (Although there is no numeric data to show the impact yet, the advisors are working on this). I was intrigued by the idea of a collaborative project such as this, and feel that the federation I work in has missed a trick by not working collaboratively like this.
The literacy session was a revelation to me. There was so many techniques brought to my attention, such as speaking frames; point evidence, explanation; nominalisation (turning processes and actions into nouns); using cards to develop continuums to support the students' development of informal talk to formal writing. I have never learned so much as I did in the two hours in that session and it was worth the whole conference to me. Well done Camden and Enfield LAs.
However, the real congratulations goes to the ASE, who organised a fantastic conference. I can't wait for 2013.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Liverpool University, UK
Monday, 5 December 2011
Creating Your Own CPD Opportunities.
During the past four years I have worked in a school where there have been very limited CPD opportunities for me up until a few weeks ago. This has very disappointing in the light of there being three different management courses run by the school at different levels and there were and now are again opportunities to do courses with the National College for School Leadership, but only for favourites of the management.
It was most distressing when I came to fill in a job application form and all of my training is from four years ago. I decided to put things right for myself. CPD is available if you look for it and are prepared to use your own time.
Science teachers have/should have good access to training through the science learning centres. Unfortunately, despite the courses being paid for by bursaries this was still blocked for me.
I joined the ASE, which gives me access to School Science Review. Although not all the articles are of use to me on a day-to-day basis, I have found something in each addition that is of use or interest. Membership of the ASE has also given me access to two local events. The West of England Science Teacher Conference and a visit to Slimbridge on one summers evening. (I really enjoyed seeing a water vole, the Otters and a Spoonbill). Both of these events were outside school hours so I could go along.
I started using twitter for connecting with other teachers. Reading other blog posts and asking for ideas has been very useful. But more useful has been the positive community; I have connected with people who want to be better practitioners, who want to build a strong education system and have pride in their classrooms. For the first time in a long time I am more satisfied with my teaching and happier inside the classroom.
I have read books and continue to add to my library. The two I have really engaged with are called "Thinking for Learning" and "How Science Works". Both have made me reappraise my practice and what education is for. Whenever I visit London I go to Foyles as their education section is the best I have found.
In the South West the science learning centre and @Bristol hold free twilight events about 3 times per year to encourage teachers to come and use the facilities. There is always something to learn from these events.
I am on various mailing lists: STEMNET, National Science and Engineering Week, Edexcel, OCR, @Bristol and more. They send useful information so I don't need to search for it.
I have attended one teachmeet and contributed to another via video. Even taking part in distant teachmeets via watching the twitter hashtag gives something to reflect upon.
The National Big Bang Science fair occurs each March. I took my partner and step-daughter (you have to take a child) to the family day on Saturday. This was great CPD as almost all the companies related to science education were there, but not those trying to sell textbooks or online assessment packages. I am going again with a group of students and two members of staff. I really hope that they get something out of the day, I am sure they will.
I am planning to take part in an online training trial for the Yorkshire and Humber Science Learning Centre, although I haven't committed yet.
I am registered with the Schools Network and with TEEP, so get emails from them and can access their resources while I work at an affiliated school. I am also registered with the National College for School Leadership; there are a lot of good resources on their site and enough discussions to pose some questions and raise issues.
Lastly, as described in another blog post I too matters into my own hands and asked to be released by school to attend the ASE conference in Liverpool. I asked as early as possible in the year so there would be money available and I was granted permission. It was worth every penny and what I discovered will impact on my teaching for a long time to come.
Making your own opportunities does require a time commitment, but it has been worth the effort for me.
It was most distressing when I came to fill in a job application form and all of my training is from four years ago. I decided to put things right for myself. CPD is available if you look for it and are prepared to use your own time.
Science teachers have/should have good access to training through the science learning centres. Unfortunately, despite the courses being paid for by bursaries this was still blocked for me.
I joined the ASE, which gives me access to School Science Review. Although not all the articles are of use to me on a day-to-day basis, I have found something in each addition that is of use or interest. Membership of the ASE has also given me access to two local events. The West of England Science Teacher Conference and a visit to Slimbridge on one summers evening. (I really enjoyed seeing a water vole, the Otters and a Spoonbill). Both of these events were outside school hours so I could go along.
I started using twitter for connecting with other teachers. Reading other blog posts and asking for ideas has been very useful. But more useful has been the positive community; I have connected with people who want to be better practitioners, who want to build a strong education system and have pride in their classrooms. For the first time in a long time I am more satisfied with my teaching and happier inside the classroom.
I have read books and continue to add to my library. The two I have really engaged with are called "Thinking for Learning" and "How Science Works". Both have made me reappraise my practice and what education is for. Whenever I visit London I go to Foyles as their education section is the best I have found.
In the South West the science learning centre and @Bristol hold free twilight events about 3 times per year to encourage teachers to come and use the facilities. There is always something to learn from these events.
I am on various mailing lists: STEMNET, National Science and Engineering Week, Edexcel, OCR, @Bristol and more. They send useful information so I don't need to search for it.
I have attended one teachmeet and contributed to another via video. Even taking part in distant teachmeets via watching the twitter hashtag gives something to reflect upon.
The National Big Bang Science fair occurs each March. I took my partner and step-daughter (you have to take a child) to the family day on Saturday. This was great CPD as almost all the companies related to science education were there, but not those trying to sell textbooks or online assessment packages. I am going again with a group of students and two members of staff. I really hope that they get something out of the day, I am sure they will.
I am planning to take part in an online training trial for the Yorkshire and Humber Science Learning Centre, although I haven't committed yet.
I am registered with the Schools Network and with TEEP, so get emails from them and can access their resources while I work at an affiliated school. I am also registered with the National College for School Leadership; there are a lot of good resources on their site and enough discussions to pose some questions and raise issues.
Lastly, as described in another blog post I too matters into my own hands and asked to be released by school to attend the ASE conference in Liverpool. I asked as early as possible in the year so there would be money available and I was granted permission. It was worth every penny and what I discovered will impact on my teaching for a long time to come.
Making your own opportunities does require a time commitment, but it has been worth the effort for me.
Tuesday, 8 November 2011
Blogging with my class - I am stuck!
I know via twitter that lots of primary classes use blogs to help improve literacy and engagement with their classes. I thought that I would try the same with a year 9 group I have.
Firstly I checked with a member of senior management whether it would be OK. He said that I should teach the students not to use their full names, not to post images that included their faces, and to make sure comments didn't reveal where students would be at a future time. All of these rules seem to make a lot of sense to me.
I started a edublogs.org blog. There is advice on their page on how to set up the blog and educate the students how to use it. I have taken their advice and I only allow students to comment on the posts that I make. So far. After the students have learned to contribute quality comments they are allowed to write their own posts. Then it is possible to allow students to have their own blog, which is something I am not keen on.
I am still at the point where I write the blog posts and the students comment. The class seem to enjoy this, but I am struggling to get them to do more than write very simple comments and they don't respond to each other. I wonder if my issue is that I am not giving them enough time to complete the work. However, even groups who finish first don't automatically read and reply to others. I would like to see this happen.
It goes back to the classic issue of getting students to look back over their own work and act on the comments that the teacher makes. I have always struggled with this when we seem to move through topics and themes at a high rate, particularly when you might have one 2.5 hour per week.
I am pleased that I am managing to consistently use the blog with the students, once per week for half an hour.
My Year 9 blog can be found at http://missrogerson.edublogs.org
Firstly I checked with a member of senior management whether it would be OK. He said that I should teach the students not to use their full names, not to post images that included their faces, and to make sure comments didn't reveal where students would be at a future time. All of these rules seem to make a lot of sense to me.
I started a edublogs.org blog. There is advice on their page on how to set up the blog and educate the students how to use it. I have taken their advice and I only allow students to comment on the posts that I make. So far. After the students have learned to contribute quality comments they are allowed to write their own posts. Then it is possible to allow students to have their own blog, which is something I am not keen on.
I am still at the point where I write the blog posts and the students comment. The class seem to enjoy this, but I am struggling to get them to do more than write very simple comments and they don't respond to each other. I wonder if my issue is that I am not giving them enough time to complete the work. However, even groups who finish first don't automatically read and reply to others. I would like to see this happen.
It goes back to the classic issue of getting students to look back over their own work and act on the comments that the teacher makes. I have always struggled with this when we seem to move through topics and themes at a high rate, particularly when you might have one 2.5 hour per week.
I am pleased that I am managing to consistently use the blog with the students, once per week for half an hour.
My Year 9 blog can be found at http://missrogerson.edublogs.org
Monday, 7 November 2011
Teaching Outside the Classroom: the corridor as a learning space
I have taken my classes outside the classroom four times so far this year to do science experiments or observe something that would help them link the abstract with an application. This is a much bigger number than in the past, but I still really don't like it.
Taking students out of the classroom is a good way to attract the attention of management. Some teachers love that, they thrive on a public "well done". I am not so confident in attracting the attention of management when I go outside; I worry about the negative and it makes me tense.
Will the students stay in the area I want them to. Will they bring their worksheets with them? Will the class behave as expected in the classroom, or more like they do at break and lunch? Will my group disturb the learning of other groups? How do I ensure they are doing and learning something when I don't have the same number of the behaviour management techniques available to me?
As stated, I have taken the students out of the classroom to learn four times this year:
The first to find the focal length of a lens. There are no plain walls in my classroom to project the image onto. We didn't go far, just into the corridor outside my room. We did disturb the next class, but everyone did the task and everyone came back when I asked.
The second to the dark room to observe Tonic Water under UV light. Instead of that the group ended up getting told off for poking each other, screaming and turning the light on and off. They were impressed that their school uniforms were glowing. Whether any member of the group will remember that UV can make some objects fluoresce, I am not confident.
The third time was the most risky. I took a group to reception to have a look at how the automatic door won't open if you stand still. Reception, where the head's office is and important people like the chair of governors come through. Fortunately the receptionist and the visitor thought the antics of the group were hilarious: obviously a group of 16 students were unable to stand still and the constant flow of other people through the doors meant that we had to have quite a few attempts to prove my point. Definitely worth it though, I will be doing that activity every time I have to teach the Doppler Effect from now on.
The most recent reason to venture outside the classroom was to measure the speed of the students walking down the corridor. How hard can it be to measure the corridor, mark points at 10 and 20 metres and then time yourself walking that distance? I discovered it can be very hard. The poor assistant head, who's office we were working outside of never complained, but he cannot have got any work done. I let the group take as long as they needed to get the results. I would have been easy for me to do it myself and give them data. I did have to do a lot of managing if their experiments though.
In the new ofsted framework will they see me taking the students out to make real measurements as risk taking and like it, or will they see off task students struggling and misbehaving and see a poor lesson? Should I worry about what others think or just do what I think is best for my groups? The students have requested we go out and measure the corridor again, so they seem to like it.
I don't think that I am brave enough to take my groups outside the classroom to a location with no walls yet though.
Taking students out of the classroom is a good way to attract the attention of management. Some teachers love that, they thrive on a public "well done". I am not so confident in attracting the attention of management when I go outside; I worry about the negative and it makes me tense.
Will the students stay in the area I want them to. Will they bring their worksheets with them? Will the class behave as expected in the classroom, or more like they do at break and lunch? Will my group disturb the learning of other groups? How do I ensure they are doing and learning something when I don't have the same number of the behaviour management techniques available to me?
As stated, I have taken the students out of the classroom to learn four times this year:
The first to find the focal length of a lens. There are no plain walls in my classroom to project the image onto. We didn't go far, just into the corridor outside my room. We did disturb the next class, but everyone did the task and everyone came back when I asked.
The second to the dark room to observe Tonic Water under UV light. Instead of that the group ended up getting told off for poking each other, screaming and turning the light on and off. They were impressed that their school uniforms were glowing. Whether any member of the group will remember that UV can make some objects fluoresce, I am not confident.
The third time was the most risky. I took a group to reception to have a look at how the automatic door won't open if you stand still. Reception, where the head's office is and important people like the chair of governors come through. Fortunately the receptionist and the visitor thought the antics of the group were hilarious: obviously a group of 16 students were unable to stand still and the constant flow of other people through the doors meant that we had to have quite a few attempts to prove my point. Definitely worth it though, I will be doing that activity every time I have to teach the Doppler Effect from now on.
The most recent reason to venture outside the classroom was to measure the speed of the students walking down the corridor. How hard can it be to measure the corridor, mark points at 10 and 20 metres and then time yourself walking that distance? I discovered it can be very hard. The poor assistant head, who's office we were working outside of never complained, but he cannot have got any work done. I let the group take as long as they needed to get the results. I would have been easy for me to do it myself and give them data. I did have to do a lot of managing if their experiments though.
In the new ofsted framework will they see me taking the students out to make real measurements as risk taking and like it, or will they see off task students struggling and misbehaving and see a poor lesson? Should I worry about what others think or just do what I think is best for my groups? The students have requested we go out and measure the corridor again, so they seem to like it.
I don't think that I am brave enough to take my groups outside the classroom to a location with no walls yet though.
Location:Rudgleigh Ave, United Kingdom
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